Episode Report Card Al Lowe: A+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Who You Callin' A Bitch?
By Al Lowe | Season 1 | Episode 6 | Aired on 11.13.2007
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Seems back in the day, Young Ned lost his ability to dream, being so sad and abandoned in the boys' home. But, as a grown man, he can dream, no problem. Wait, as a matter of fact, this is a problem -- especially when he dreams that he can touch Chuck, and when they celebrate this touching by getting naked, he finds that Chuck is really Olive in a Chuck suit. I'd like to say this is very sexy, but a "Chuck suit"...that's pretty gross. Anyway, Ned's in kind of a pickle trying to decide if his dream, plus the spontaneous smooch he had with Olive in the last episode, means he's secretly hot and bothered for her. Meanwhile, Olive stresses over the same issue and Chuck gets a little pouty that she doesn't get to kiss Ned herself. All of this is very interesting, but before they can work through this developing triangle, they catch a case. Seems a polygamist dog breeder, after he was poisoned, accidentally stabbed himself to death on an elaborate dog brush...yeah, I said it. When the dead guy tells the crew that his wife poisoned him, they think they'll have an easy time of it, until they find that he has four wives, all also dog breeders. Enrolling Olive as a temporary team member, the four of them go undercover, each using Digby as a co-spy, and try to discover which wife is guilty. When Chuck's favorite wife is arrested for the crime, they decide to prove her innocence and get on the trail of a repugnant rival dog breeder, who has nefarious plans to clone Bubblegum, the dead man's beloved dead dog. Ah, but then someone kills that guy. Using extreme genius, the team smokes out the guilty wife at the original dead guy's funeral, and goes back to working on their own issues. Ned apologizes for avoiding Olive since their kiss, and realizes he does love her as a friend when she tells him she just wants him to be happy. And, as happy as he is to know what he really wants -- Chuck -- the sadness remains that they can never touch. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Jim Dale serves up his weekly tale of woe: Back in the day when Young Ned spent his time in the School for Abandoned Children (not its official name), he lost the ability to do much dreaming, even while wearing the monster head he used to wear when he played with Chuck. "He found," JD drones as the Claymation family Ned has conjured up in his mind falls apart, "even his imagination failed him." Digby, who obviously can never die, since we see him sleeping in a closed trunk, whimpers a sad cry for his master's broken heart. Yes, well, none of that was depressing at all.
But, ah, hope is alive, for as Ned stares up into the full moon out the window, somewhere out there Chuck is pining for him under the same moon. Now, are you kids old enough to see what I did there? That joke had layers. Come on. Get a little Ronstadt in your life, young people. Jim Dale explains that because they continued to think of each other, Ned and Chuck were together, even though they were far apart.
Well, back in the present day, they're no longer far apart, but are they really together? Waking up one morning, Ned rolls over in his twin bed to see the fresh-faced Chuck stretching awake in hers. "Are you watching me sleep?" Chuck asks. Ned quirks through an entire paragraph of Gilmorian babble before finally saying that yeah, watching Chuck wake up is like watching her come back to life. Um, isn't it romantic? Chuck smiles and goes to get up for the day but, gasp!, accidentally trips over the sleeping Digby and falls into Ned's bed! Right on top of him! Ned is horrified! Is this the end of his beloved? A moment later, no, she pops up not even slightly dead. Hooray! But, why? "Maybe," Ned says, "it wears off...maybe there's an eclipse...maybe...oh, my God, your skin is amazing..." Chuck silences him with a finger to his lips. "We're wearing too many clothes," she says, immediately stripping off her cute nightgown, embarrassing Digby no end. "I'm still wearing too many clothes," she says, confusing Ned. "You're not wearing any," he says, thrilled. That is, in fact, true, but apparently, er, apparently, she is wearing (cover your eyes!) Too Much SKIN. AAAAIEEEE! Wasn't the Halloween episode last week? Right? If so, why is Chuck now gripping her waist and pulling her skin over her head to reveal the Olive Snook beneath? HUH? Deep breaths, Al Lowe, for it is just a dream. The scariest dream in history, but still. "Don't tell Chuck," Olive whispers as she lays one on Ned, who receives it happily, but starts awake, thank God, to find that he is not actually doing the dirty with a crazy skin-suited alien hybrid, but in his sexless twin bed, back where we started this ordeal. (May I make a side note here about how Lee Pace is possibly the luckiest actor on TV right now? Did he or did he not just get up close and personal with the two most impressive sets of natural bazooms in prime time? You're the man, Pace.)